


surprises

by foxmagpie



Series: little black dress and practical heels [5]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 20:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19893781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmagpie/pseuds/foxmagpie
Summary: Dean and Beth fight about Rio. On girls night, Beth, Annie, and Ruby discover a mysterious package left on the doorstep by Rio. Beth prepares for their first date.---“This is weird, right? A gift after a first—I don’t know, can you even call it a date?”Annie juts her lip out, tilts her head, and squints one eye, like,No, Beth, trying to bone someone you just met in a van outside the bar is not a date,but thankfully she refrains from vocalizing it. Instead, she answers the other question and says, “I think that depends on what’s inside. If it’s a finger? Yes, definitely weird. But it’s probably okay if it’s like, a box of chocolates or something.” She shakes the box again. “Too light for chocolates, but conceivably as heavy as a finger, maybe even an ear.”Beth grimaces. “Seriously, Annie?”“Maybe this is what dating is like in 2019,” Ruby says, shrugging. “Maybe this is him wooing you? I have no point of reference. Stan wooed me by passing me notes with the lyrics to Salt-n-Pepa songs in English class.”





	surprises

Feeling like a boy-crazy teenager, Beth lies sprawled out in her bed smiling like an idiot replaying her night in her head. She can’t believe that sex with a stranger can be that _good_ —before last night, she had believed that it could only ever truly be great sex if both people knew each other inside and out but _wow._ That was better than any sex she’d ever had with her own husband in the last ten years—maybe _ever._ Now she understands Annie’s penchant for flings. 

Knowing that her kids will be here soon and that she can’t dawdle to daydream about Rio’s hands or his mouth or his— _well,_ knowing she better get a move on, Beth slips on her house shoes and finds a ponytail in her nightstand and throws her hair up. She’s maybe got just enough time to get batter for pancakes or french toast mixed up before everyone barrels through the front door.

As soon as she opens her bedroom door, however, she hears another door far off in the house open and slam, too. The mudroom? 

“Hello?” she calls, and before she even steps foot into the foyer, she hears Dean yell, “BETH!” 

_“What?”_ she asks, instantly annoyed.

She and Dean stand facing each other from nearly opposite ends of the foyer: Dean at the kitchen, she just outside the hallway to her bedroom. Between them lies the remnants of her outfit last night: buttons refract sunlight from the windows of the front door, her blouse and jeans lie crumpled at opposite walls. Dean notices them, too. 

“Did you bring that man back to _our house_? And have sex with him in our _hallway_?”

“ _My_ house, _my_ hallway,” Beth reiterates. She’d won it in the divorce, after all—not that she was exactly sure that was a good thing. Although she’d been working for the last several months at a little local bakery, there was no way even the money she’d saved up could pay this mortgage for more than a couple months—a combination of Dean’s disastrous financial decisions and her meager paychecks. “And yes. I did.”

She enjoys the look that flashes across his face before he tries to compose himself. Were they ever once spontaneous enough to have sex anywhere but a bed? If they were, Beth has long forgotten it now. 

“Beth, our kids live here,” he says, shaking his head like she’s an absolute idiot.

“Oh, right, and your sex life didn’t impact our children at all,” Beth mocks.

“Don’t be petty,” he snaps at her, coming closer. “I have a legitimate concern, okay?”

 _Petty?_ Beth wants to roll her eyes. “And what is that?”

“Uhhhh, he’s a _kingpin_ in local crime?” Dean says, like it’s obvious. 

Beth’s eyes narrow. She knew Dean was a liar, but this is just ridiculous. “Don’t be absurd.”

“He _told_ us, Beth. You were _there_!”

She digs around in her memory to when Dean asked Rio what he did (or more accurately, who would hire a guy with a neck tattoo at a job that paid well enough for him to be able to afford whatever kind of fancy car he drove—god, the memory alone makes Beth cringe). She doesn’t remember what Rio had said, though. That had been around the time that Annie had walked in and—yes, she remembers now. She had only tuned back in to hear Rio say something about making a joke.

“You weren’t stupid enough to believe that,” she says, and it’s not a question, but shouldn’t it be? She’s got some legitimate doubts about his intelligence right about now. “He was obviously messing with you.”

“Sure, he played it off that way,” scoffs Dean, crossing his arms. “But think about it, Beth. That’s a sixty-five, seventy thousand dollar car he’s driving! Tell me, who do you honestly think would hire a guy that looks like that?” He gestures to his neck.

“Not everyone hires based on looks alone,” she retorts icily. “What criteria did you hire Amber on, again?”

Dean waves her off, but then his eye catches something. “Are those _hickeys_?” 

As if she could feel them out, Beth’s fingers fly to her neck. “Yes,” she says defiantly. “So?”

Dean tries to shake it off, ignore it, but she can see that his face is turning red. “How long have you been dating this guy?” He kicks at her blouse on the floor.

Beth swipes down to start to pick up her clothes—it’s one thing for Dean to see the mess of her escapades last night, and another for the kids to be exposed to it. 

“Why is that important?”

“How well do you know this guy?”

“Well enough,” Beth counters.

“So what’s he do, huh? If he’s not a crime lord like he says…”

“He’s in business,” Beth lies. She has no idea what he does—she hadn’t even thought to ask him. It hadn’t seemed like an important bit of data to learn when she was busy learning how his lips tasted. Being in business feels sufficiently vague enough to be able to apply to whatever job he actually does later—or, more likely, he’d be happy to play whatever part he needs to convince Dean if they ever interact again. 

“What business?” 

“Dean, honestly, it’s really none of yours. He’s just a guy I’m dating. If I’m thinking of introducing him to the kids, I’ll let you know.” Beth knows that won’t happen—Rio is obviously interested in hookups, not relationships, and he’s not really Beth’s type, anyway—but there’s no reason Dean needs to know that.

She strides past him to dump her clothes into the laundry room, and Dean follows. 

“You can’t—"

“Dean!” She’s finally reached her limit, throwing her hands in the air. “Get out. This isn’t your house anymore. You can’t just let yourself in. You lost the right to say anything about the men I bring home when you brought home other women _while we were married_. You don’t get to be jealous.” 

Dean sputters. “I didn’t bring them _home_.”

“Oh, no, you’re right—I’m _so_ sorry,” she says sarcastically. 

“I’m not—I’m not _jealous_ , Beth.”

Beth puts her hands to her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “No? Then why did you come knocking in the bar parking lot last night?” She focuses on dumping her clothes into the washing machine, but she’s sure that Dean can probably see her neck turning red. 

“Well—well. I asked Annie what happened to you, and she mentioned you went out to the car with that guy—“

“And you felt you needed to follow _why_?”

“Because he’s a criminal, Beth!”

She feels like pulling her hair out. “Most criminals don’t really, you know, _announce_ it.” She slams the lid of the washing machine shut. “You knew what Annie meant when she said I went to the car, and you knew you’d be interrupting.”

She turns to see that the look on Dean’s face confirming that she’s right.

“Now please leave,” she says with finality. “The kids will be here any minute and it’s important that we follow the schedule and don’t confuse them. I mean, their well-being is your top concern, _right_?”

Dean doesn’t even acknowledge this statement. He just throws up his hands like he can’t be bothered with her and walks out of the mudroom door. Beth lets her hair down to cover her hickeys, and it’s a good thing, too, because the kids throw open the front door and come running in not two minutes later.

* * *

“What do you think it is?” Annie asks, shaking the box next to her ear. “It’s light.”

It’s Wednesday night, the first available time that Beth, Annie, and Ruby had been able to coordinate schedules for a girls night, and the three of them are crowded around the kitchen island looking at the small brown package that had been waiting on Beth’s doorstep when they arrived at her house after going out for post-work drinks for happy hour. 

“I don’t know,” Beth says. She traces the _ELIZABETH_ scrawled on the front of the box. There’s no postage or address, so he must have dropped it off. “Honestly I don’t even have a guess.”

“Why do you need to guess? You could just open it,” Ruby points out. 

Beth nods but doesn’t make a move to grab the scissors. “This is weird, right? A gift after a first—I don’t know, can you even call it a date?”

Annie juts her lip out, tilts her head, and squints one eye, like, _No, Beth, trying to bone someone you just met in a van outside the bar is not a date,_ but thankfully she refrains from vocalizing it. Instead, she answers the other question and says, “I think that depends on what’s inside. If it’s a finger? Yes, definitely weird. But it’s probably okay if it’s like, a box of chocolates or something.” She shakes the box again. “Too light for chocolates, but conceivably as heavy as a finger, maybe even an ear.”

Beth grimaces. “Seriously, Annie?” 

“Maybe this is what dating is like in 2019,” Ruby says, shrugging. “Maybe this is him wooing you? I have no point of reference. Stan wooed me by passing me notes with the lyrics to Salt-n-Pepa songs in English class.” 

Annie digs around in the junk drawer for the scissors. “Open it!”

Beth cuts the paper off the box and then slices down the tape holding the flaps together. Tucked on top of a small, folded mass of black material is a note, which Beth reads to them: “‘ _For Friday. Wear with practical heels.'”_

Ruby says “huh” while Annie squeals. “Beth, he’s taking you dancing!”

Beth furrows her brow. “What? How do you know that?”

“Don’t you remember? The lie he made up for Dean? About how you met?”

“You bitches are terrible at telling stories,” Ruby complains. “You left this part out!”

“To be fair, there were so many good parts, it was hard to remember them all,” says Annie. 

Ruby makes an annoyed noise. “So, what’s the story?” 

“Dean asked where we met and was, like, suggesting all of these boring places, you know, insulting me for not having a life—”

“Beth, those are the normal places you hang out,” Annie points out. 

“ _Anyway_ , Rio told him we met dancing.”

“Ooh!” Ruby says, getting excited and shimmying her shoulders. 

“Yeah, _and,”_ Annie jumps in, “he said Beth caught his eye in a little black dress and practical heels! And then Dean was all ‘she never wears little black dresses’ and Rio was all ‘she’s trying new things,’ and then Dean’s head exploded.” 

Ruby laughs delightedly. 

“Show us the dress, Beth!” Annie begs.

Beth holds up the dress, which is actually mid-length but has a high slit on one side that she suspects will reveal a good portion of the front of her thigh. There are thick straps—thank goodness, she needs the support—and a bit of a plunge which will show off her cleavage—not something she normally does. 

Beth balks at the same time that Annie shrieks, “You are going to look so hot in that!” 

“Look, the back is good too—you won’t have to wear a strapless bra.”

“Damn, he’s _good_. Where is it from?” Annie grabs the box, now unwrapped, and reads the label. Her jaw drops. “Holy shit, Beth. It’s from Saks.”

Ruby’s eyebrows shoot up and Beth feels a blush burning across her cheeks. 

“Try it on; I’m going to try and find it online, see how much money he just dropped on you.” 

“No—don’t. I don’t want to know,” Beth says as she walks into the laundry room, just out of sight from them to change into the dress. It’s already too much to know that he’s bought _anything_ for her and that he’s dropped it off at her house. If she also finds out it was expensive? She might just burst into flames.

“I’m gonna do it. If you don’t want to know, I just won’t tell you.”

Beth rolls her eyes, steps out of her jeans and pulls her blouse over her head. When she slides the dress on, the material is soft and stretches perfectly for comfort. Before she can tell if it truly fits, though, she’ll need one of the girls to zip her up. 

“Okay, don’t look yet, but someone zip me.”

“I’ll do it,” Ruby volunteers. 

Ruby shields her eyes until Beth’s back is to her and Annie doesn’t even look up from scrolling through her phone. When it’s zipped, Beth steps back so that they can get the full view and exhales and says, “Okay.”

“Oh. My. God,” Annie says, but Beth looks up only to see that Annie isn’t reacting to the dress at all—she’s shaking her phone back and forth towards Ruby. “ _Ruby._ You have to look at this.” 

Annie shoves the phone in Ruby’s face, too close for her to even really see it. 

“Back it up,” Ruby commands, and when Annie does, she squints and then her jaw drops. “Daaaaaaaaamn.”

“Oh, god,” Beth says. “What?”

“If you didn’t want to know before, you definitely don’t want to know now.”

Now it feels like Beth _has_ to know—her imagination might be worse than reality. “Oh, god. Tell me.” 

“Are you sure?”

“Tell me!” Beth insists, rubbing her face in the agony of anticipation.

Annie and Ruby glance at each other, and Ruby makes a face like, _I’m not doing it—you do it._

“It’s like $400,” Annie says.

“Shut up.”

“What does this guy _do_?” Ruby asks. “If he’s dropping 400 bucks on a woman he barely knows? No offense—you’re lovely—but—”

“You must have golden tier pussy,” Annie says. 

“Don’t be crass,” Beth says. She fans herself. He really spent four hundred _dollars_? Just to take her dancing? What _does_ he do?

“I’m just saying. The best thing a guy ever bought me after a random hookup was, like, a full Subway meal—cookie and drink and everything. They _do_ have really good cookies, though. Have you guys tried their white chocolate and macadamia nut? It’s like a little, itty, bitty slice of heaven.”

Ruby rolls her eyes, knowing Annie is just being Annie. She redirects to Beth. “So, first of all—you look amazing.” 

“Yeah,” Annie says, snapping back to reality. She whistles. “He is definitely going to want to rip that off you and, like, fuck you in the bathroom." 

Beth winces. 

“Second of all, first date on Friday!” Ruby says, wiggling her eyebrows. 

“Yeah,” Beth bites her lip. “ _When_ on Friday, though? The note is so vague—and frankly, a little inconsiderate. There’s not even a way for me to respond and tell him whether that works for my schedule!” Beth huffs.

“Maybe it’s a test,” Annie suggests. “You know, like, obviously he’s kind of a spontaneous, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kinda guy. Maybe he’s just seeing if you can keep up with him.” 

Beth juts her lip out. She’s not sure she can keep up with him—he’s obviously rich (or terrible with money) and definitely experienced—but he's also interesting and fun. Before him, the most exciting thing she’d done in months was sign up for hot yoga, and she’d instantly regretted it and slunk out halfway through the session.

“I’m not sure I can go, though. Dean asked me to take the kids on Friday so he and Amber can go to a Garth Brooks concert.” Technically they shouldn’t do the kid swap until Sunday, but when she hadn’t heard anything from Rio for several days, she'd assumed she’d be free, that it wouldn't be a problem. 

“Ew,” Annie says. “He's wooing her with Garth Brooks? How did he land her again? I mean, I know we don’t like to acknowledge this, but she’s smokin’, and Dean is so… _Dean_.”

"Garth Brooks is really popular," Beth says, and both of them shoot her looks like, _Beth, please_. 

“B, me or Annie can come over and stay with the kids,” Ruby says. “You deserve to go have fun and get _laid_.”

“Well, yes, I agree,” Beth says, and she starts to unzip the dress. “But do I want to do it with someone that just, like, leaves me absurdly expensive gifts on my porch and tells me when he’s taking me out next, without even having a conversation about it? Isn't that inconsiderate and isn't the gift maybe even a little inappropriate?” 

“How good is he at giving head again?” Annie asks. “Because if it was really good, then, like, _yeah_. You do want to do it with someone exactly like him.”

Beth turns scarlet and refuses to answer that as she changes back into her normal clothes. “I’m being serious. Is this the guy that I want to move on from Dean with?” 

“Look, he’s not going to be your next husband. He doesn’t exactly scream step-dad material, right? He probably won’t even be your next serious boyfriend. He’s just _fun_. So just sleep with him one or five or twelve more times and then call it good. In the meantime, we got you, girl,” Annie says gently, realizing Beth needs an actual pep talk.

“Yeah,” Ruby agrees. “We’re good for babysitting or whatever you need.”

Beth hesitates still.

“Okay, I’m going to say something, and I want you to know I mean it as _nicely_ as possible, alright?” Annie says, eyebrows lifted. “But Beth? Please, _please_ get fucked.”

“I don’t know how to salsa dance,” Beth points out. “I’m going to embarrass myself.”

“He does not care how good you dance,” Ruby says. “He just wants to, like, get up all close to you.” 

“And then fuck you in the bathroom,” Annie adds. “Now, let’s talk about hair and makeup.”

Beth shakes her head and starts digging in the cupboard for glasses. She’s going to need alcohol if they’re going to keep talking about this.

* * *

Beth spends all of Friday with a pit in her stomach. Every minute she’s not rolling out pastry dough or decorating a cupcake or actively helping out a customer, she’s thinking about the dress hanging in her closet, the deep red lipstick sitting out on her vanity, the strappy red block heels Annie had made her buy.

Secretly, though, she’s also a little worried that Rio might not ever show up—he’d never designated a time, and so she knows she’s going to feel foolish getting ready and just waiting and waiting and waiting for him to show up. 

Luckily, Annie had volunteered to pick up the kids from Dean’s after she gets off work—mostly because she’s jubilant that she gets to tell him why Beth couldn't do it herself. 

It turns out that it does take Rio a long time to come over and get her. Long enough that Beth is dressed and made up and ready to go, and just sitting there on her couch with nothing to do but overthink everything. Beth’s nerves are on high alert to the point that the second glass of bourbon doesn’t even calm her down. She tries watching TV as a distraction, but it’s a bust. She feels jittery and all that’s replaying in her head is the way he had told murmured that he wanted to taste her before he had pinned her wrists above her head and trailed his mouth down her body. 

She feels ridiculous doing it, especially right _now,_ but she’s sort of built up the anticipation of tonight to the point that she’s just taut with tension—she can’t wait to sleep with him again, but it's possible that he just might not come, and if she can’t distract herself with anything else, then surely it makes sense, if she’s already so turned on—?

Beth lays on her bed and hikes up the dress just enough (although she’s discouraged, she hasn't completely given up hope yet, so she still wants to keep it on). She slips her bullet vibrator beneath her panties, and finally, _finally_ , she forgets about all of her anxieties and focuses only on how good it feels to remember his tongue on her while she feels the buzzing of the vibrator and the pressure building and building and building—and just as she feels herself tumble over the edge, the doorbell rings.

He’s here. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I tried to find a dress I liked on the Saks website, but I couldn't find the perfect one, so I went with [this dress](https://www.nastygal.com/plunge-down-midi-dress/AGG85227.html) which is definitely not $400, but if it was sold at Saks, it probably would be! These are the [heels](https://www.prettylittlething.us/red-high-block-heel-strappy-sandal.html) I imagine she pairs with it, which are practical only in the sense that she's not balancing on a stiletto, but I imagine Annie really wouldn't let her wear anything more sensible than that.
> 
> Also, sorry that there's not any in-person interactions between Beth & Rio yet! But I really wanted to do his POV for seeing her for the first time he sees her in the dress!


End file.
